


get it off your chest

by stubliminalmessaging



Series: the right track [3]
Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Gen, Recreational Drug Use, Trans Mickey, transphobic slurs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-18
Updated: 2015-07-18
Packaged: 2018-04-09 23:49:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4369046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stubliminalmessaging/pseuds/stubliminalmessaging
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mandy closed the windows of weird porn that Iggy had left open and typed ‘chest binding tensor bandage’ into google. All the results she got were unanimous in their advice to avoid binding with tensor bandages.</p>
            </blockquote>





	get it off your chest

**Author's Note:**

> i really like this fic so. enjoy.

                Mandy tried not to treat Mickey any differently after he came out to her and started presenting as a boy, but one change she definitely had to make was to do with privacy. Being sisters in a family made up of primarily men since their mother died, they had lived in pretty close quarters and shared a lot of things. But when Mickey started presenting as a boy, there were suddenly all these new boundaries and Mickey needed so much more privacy and so Mandy let him have it. She did everything she thought she could to give Mickey what he needed, but she still managed to fuck that up by accident and disrupt the tenuous balance they had managed to establish.

 

                She had just finished her homework and got a text from one of her friends asking if she wanted to go to the movies that night. She said sure and Gina texted her a show time and she went to get ready. She did her hair and her makeup and she was just on her way out the door when she checked her reflection on her phone one last time. It was a moment of horror when she realized that her roots were showing and she absolutely _could not_ go out like this. But if she didn’t leave now she was going to miss her train and she’d be late to the show and Gina would be mad at her so she needed to come up with a quick alternative to touching up her roots. She darted to her room to grab a beanie she had left perched on the corner of her desk. She paid no heed to the door she didn’t remember closing and pushed it open.

 

                She and Mickey both froze when she spotted him topless in front of her full-length mirror, partway through wrapping his chest. Mandy ducked past him, trying not to trip on the roll of tensor bandage he’d dropped in his surprise as he rushed to cover himself and grabbed her beanie and then fled. She called an apology over her shoulder as she closed the door behind her and hoped that she hadn’t completely ruined the rapport that they had built since Mickey had come out to her.

 

-

 

                After the movie Mandy hung out with Gina for another couple hours and then headed home. It was when she was on the El waiting for her stop that she finally thought back to her run-in with Mickey earlier. She’d noticed the change in his appearance of course as he’d started exclusively wearing men’s clothes and tried different things to flatten his chest with varying levels of success. Whatever he had been doing lately seemed to be working out since he looked flat and seemed pretty pleased with it.

 

                She thought about how Mickey had been binding and puzzled over it. She swore she remembered reading about binding when she’d researched trans things back when Mickey came out to her. She couldn’t remember what exactly she had read so she resolved to look it up again as soon as she could get the computer back from Iggy’s gross porn-addicted hands. (The least he could do was wipe the browser history or even rent porn from a shop like a normal pervert.)

 

-

 

                The next afternoon Mandy went downstairs and found the laptop covered in Dorito crumbs surrounded by piles of crusty tissues on the edge of Iggy’s bed. She extracted it carefully and found the box of unused tissues to clean it off as best she could before she absconded back upstairs with it. She plugged it in and lit a smoke while she waited for it to boot up.

 

                She closed the windows of weird porn that Iggy had left open and typed ‘chest binding tensor bandage’ into google. All the results she got were unanimous in their advice to avoid binding with tensor bandages. Binding with tensor bandages restricted breathing and could result in permanent ribcage damage and there was no way Mandy could let Mickey keep doing this. She’d read the term ‘compression top’ as an alternative to bandages. She googled the term and found some sites that sold them (they looked like weirdly bulky tank tops but she supposed if they went underneath Mickey’s clothes, it didn’t matter anyway) and unfortunately they were all out of her price range.

 

                But Mickey’s birthday was in a couple months, and Mandy was sure she could come up with like seventy bucks by then.

 

-

 

                Mickey’s fifteenth birthday was mostly really shitty. He did some collections and when he was by the school he’d seen a couple teachers and they’d all talked down to him and referred to him as a girl. He’d tried to stay out of the house all day since his dad was home and drinking and Mickey was his favourite punching bag these days.

 

                So he hung around the school for a bit, selling what he could and collecting from the people he could track down. He even shook down a couple juniors who basically pissed their pants when he stalked towards them. Things were going okayish until some fuckhead on the track team made some stupid joke about his boypussy. The insult made him much more upset than he let on, but punching the fucker in the face and breaking his nose made Mickey feel much better, even if he did tear open his knuckles on the guy’s cheekbone.

 

                He walked home alone and thought about pocketing a bottle of Jack from the store he usually hit up (he could have probably just walked out with it if Kash n’ Grab was working since he was fuckin’ chickenshit. The only person who would ever say shit to him would be the kid that worked there sometimes and Mickey _definitely_ didn’t need to worry about a scrawny little thing like him) but decided against it.

 

                He was thinking about having a wank sesh in the shower when he got home, but he only got as far as shrugging his bag off his shoulder before Mandy was pushing open his bedroom door brandishing a bong.

 

                “Happy birthday fuckface,” she said, grinning as she shook the bong at him enticingly, making all the water slosh around.

 

                “Don’t know what the fuck you’re talkin’ about,” Mickey mumbled, but Mandy took his not-immediately-grumpy response as a warm welcome and stepped into his room, closing the door behind herself.

 

                “Pretend all you want, I remember when your birthday is even when no-one else does,” she sat on the end of Mickey’s bed and tugged the bag of weed out of her pocket. She sat cross-legged on the bed as she packed the bowl and Mickey could see her lacy thong as her skirt rode up but it was nothing new. “Plus, I know you’ll never turn down free weed.”

 

                “That is true,” Mickey admitted, taking the bong from Mandy as she finished getting it ready. He got a lighter from his headboard and lit up, flipping Mandy off as she started singing ‘happy birthday’ while he took the first toke. He coughed a little on the exhale and handed in back to Mandy, sitting back against his bedroom wall with his legs stretched out over the bed.

 

                “Do anything good today?” Mandy asked twenty minutes later when they were mostly done with this round of weed and had settled into a mellow high. She giggled. “Get laid?”

 

                “No and no,” Mickey replied, shrugging. “Same shit as always.”

 

                “I heard from Kelly that you beat up Dylan Frankolm,” Mandy said, sideeyeing Mickey. When Mickey shrugged again she let out a scoff of disbelief. “He’s like twice your size, Mick.”

 

                “Yeah well he dropped like a fuckin’ bag of rocks,” Mickey said with no small amount of aloof toughness. He didn’t bother to explain why and Mandy didn’t ask because Kelly had told her.

 

                “I got something for you,” Mandy said fairly suddenly since they’d been sitting there in mostly silence for a better part of ten minutes and she had yet to mention this. She hauled herself up off Mickey’s bed and disappeared for a moment, and when she came back she had a bulky package covered in tape and shipping labels. Mandy tossed it on the bed beside Mickey and crossed her arms over her chest, waiting.

 

                Mickey picked up the package and tried to pull it open but the tape stretched without tearing so he had to fumble on his headboard to find his butterfly knife. He cut open the package and pulled out the folded-up fabric in the bag. He unfolded it and lifted it up, frowning a little in confusion.

 

                “It’s a compression top,” Mandy blurted out. “To bind your chest. I read online that the bandage you use to wrap your chest is actually really bad for you.”

 

                Mickey held it taut and stretched it over his chest. “No shit?”

 

                “No shit. But,” Mandy rushed to explain as Mickey inspected the top. “There are some rules. Like you can’t exercise or do anything involving running while you’re wearing it,” she explained. “Or like anything that makes you breathe heavy. Because it compresses your chest it’ll be harder to breathe so you gotta take it easy while you’re in it.”

 

                She paused and Mickey narrowed his eyes at her and looked suspiciously down at the top. Mandy gnawed her lip and then finally caved. “Also, you’re not supposed to smoke while wearing it.”

 

                Mickey snorted and got up off the bed. “Thanks for the gift or whatever, but that’s not gonna fucking happen,” he said, slamming the door behind him as he left the room and, judging by the slamming of the second door and the drunken yelling of their dad, the house. Mandy sighed and looked down at the top where it lay abandoned hanging off the edge of Mickey’s mattress.

 

                It was a huge comfort to her when she found Mickey’s old tensor bandage balled up in the garbage in the bathroom the next day. She giddily noted the flatness of her brother’s chest when she saw him prowling the halls at school shaking kids down a couple days later. He practically smoked around her in direct defiance of her rules, but she could see his appreciation for the gift in the small things he did. She was the best sister ever and she had definitely given Mickey the best gift ever. Booya.

**Author's Note:**

> the next fic in this series will introduce ian :>


End file.
